


On That Bright Morning

by captaincophine



Category: Orphan Black
Genre: F/F, Headcanon, POV First Person, Season 3, first fanfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-08
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-04-03 12:56:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4101760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captaincophine/pseuds/captaincophine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Here’s a short headcanon piece from Cosima’s POV. It picks up the spiritual plotline that hasn’t gone too far in the show (post-3x01/pre-3x08).  I decided to break it up into 2 chapters because, honestly, I haven’t finished the natural 2nd half of the story.  Hoping that posting this will get me motivated to finish.</p><p>This is my very first time writing fiction.  I hope it makes sense!  Your comments are always welcome.  Thanks for reading.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to @trylonandperisphere for the edits and suggestions!

_**But I’m taking the day off.  Quiet as a feather.  I hardly move though really I’m traveling a terrific distance.** _

_**Stillness.  One of the doors into the temple.** _

**Mary Oliver**

_**Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure.** _

**Henri Nouwen**

**Φ**

_Slow, long deep breaths.  In….out….in…._

_… When was the last time I breathed like this, felt like this?  Completely grounded.  Steady.  Knowing intimately the brokenness of my body, the crushing reality of this whole situation, while remaining solid and whole.  Thinking back, it must have been on that bright morning when she came to me…._

The weight of this life, relentlessly punishing me over and over again, was bordering on unbearable.  I just couldn’t catch my breath.  And as much as I love Felix, I had to get out of that fucking loft.  It’s not that he hasn’t been totally amazing.  I just haven’t been able to breathe… not since _that_ moment in the hallway.  

Okay, I’ll admit it – I haven’t been able to face anything since then.  Not recovering from this disease, not decoding the cipher, not finding a cure for myself or my sisters.  Pain has that effect on me, I guess.  I retreat.  I hide.  I protect myself.  It’s just something I’ve always done.  Sometimes I surprise myself by the speed those thick tall walls go up.  And I'm even more shocked when I find myself wounding, going in for the kill, slashing away in the name of self-defense.  The survival instinct is strong — it's written on every molecule of my DNA.  

The biological imperative to survive has gotten me this far I suppose, but lately I haven’t been able to shake this feeling that I’ve taken a wrong turn.  I’ve been spun around and left completely disoriented.  It’s like I’m waging a war against myself, mirroring the autoimmune disease that’s systematically dismantling my body, cell by cell.  

She wrecked me with so few words.   _“…but to do that, I can’t do this.  Do you understand?”_  And _whoosh_ , those tried and true fortifications flew up and snuffed out any sense of hope I allowed myself to feel.  But to be honest, how could she have possibly known about that secret agreement I made with myself — to believe in her, to trust in her, to allow her in without reservation?  In that moment, everything went hazy and numb.  All I could feel were the cold hard walls.  All I could hear was, “But you said you’d never leave me.  You told me to not be afraid.  I came back for you...”  

And yet, she is gone.  What's left is devastation.  Instead of bright hope, I was plunged into a darkness and confusion so dense I couldn’t see two feet in front of me.

Without her, all that is left are problems to figure out alone.  But this time, it isn’t quite as simple as hypothesis/experiment/results.  I’m just not equipped to gather the empirical data required to lay this paradox and my mind to rest.  

The pain of that initial fight — the first betrayal after I discovered her real last name, her true identity — floods back into my heart adding to the throbbing already residing there. _“How can I possibly believe that, Delphine?”_  I’ll never forget the way she looked at me with such breathless desperation.   _“Because you feel it!....This is not...it’s not a lie.  It’s not possible.”_  Believe because you feel it, Cosima…

I may have been dying, the 5 liters of oxygen and post-dance party good vibes barely keeping me afloat.  It all may have been a crazy hallucination after all.  But it just _felt so real_.  

She came to me in the quiet of the morning, just as I was slipping away.  Maybe I was ready to let go but she wasn’t.  Maybe it was just me thinking that she wasn’t ready to let go.  And oh, the light!  How can I explain any of this to anyone?  to her?.... to myself?  I mean, blinding brightness and billowy apparitions – how cliché can you possibly get?  

Show, don’t tell, right Cosima?  I am a fucking scientist.  I believe in Darwin and natural selection “silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever opportunity offers.”  I believe in the beauty of the random dandelion seed wildly floating through the air ready to pass on their genetic material.  I believe in the hidden order found in the repeating geometry of DNA molecules and pine cones and nautilus shells and flower petals and fern fiddleheads and the entire cosmos.

What I don’t believe in is some omnipotent higher power, all-knowing, willing us to be drawn to him. Or her. Or it.  And I certainly don’t believe in bright white lights and gorgeous blonde-haired angels coming down to stop me from expelling my final breath so that I can fulfill some sort of purpose (even if it is a worthy goal like curing myself and my sisters).

And yet…. _Because you feel it, Cosima...it’s not a lie.  It’s not possible._  The back and forth between these competing realities is so exhausting.  I can’t deny any of them.  My mind knows well the truth of science and of nature.  And my heart has become intimately familiar with the darkness left behind by her rejection, her absence.  But the truth behind that strange vision is palpable.  It’s just as real.  I can feel it resonating throughout my whole body.  All this tension taunts me and threatens to tear me apart.  It threatens my very existence.  There is no silencing the noise of my thoughts repeating over and over again.   _You’re sick. You’re alone. You’re not in control._

It’s that unforgiving noise that drove me out of the loft and into the hustle of the morning's rush hour.  I had no idea of which direction to go.  All I knew is that I needed to breathe.  So I just started walking and then something, a feeling, eventually drew me down a set of stairs…

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here is the 2nd half of this story. I've been stuck for so long but I finally pushed through it today. I'm not bothering to have anyone beta it so forgive me if it shows! I just wanted to get it out before I changed my mind :) 
> 
> It's been fun trying to get inside the head of one of my favorite characters and fun (in a torturous kind of way) trying to describe such abstract experiences. I hope it makes sense to you and that you get something out of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To listen along with Cosima, go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSAMK3kiz5c

Maybe it was that same something that urged me to override the autopilot feature that’s kept me going in spite of this dull ache taking up residence in my chest. It was like a little kid tugging at my pants, begging for my attention. _“hey. . . just stop. right. here.”_ And for whatever reason, I actually listened. I was so worn down that I’d be kidding myself to think I had some sort of choice in the matter. The noise of my thoughts, which subsided for those few seconds returned loudly, but only this time was gladly interrupted by the lonely sound of a violin resonating throughout the subway station.

It didn’t take long for me to spot the musician and see him standing across the tracks on the opposite platform. The immense resonance the violin was generating overshadowed the little maestro as he played his tune. My attention was fixed on him, like I was going to be tested on the exact details of this moment. His eyes were gently closed. There was a certain tenderness and care, a reverence in the way he cradled the instrument under his chin that somehow quieted me as if I were entering a sacred space. And in his bow hand, he slowly drew out an invitation to stop and listen for awhile.

So I stopped and I listened.

I found a place to pause, out of the path of the growing commuter crowds, and like the violinist, I closed my eyes, hoping that any distractions wouldn't find a path in. The reward was subtle yet immediate. The cacophony in my head that drove me to this place slowly faded out and was replaced by the overwhelming sound of this single violin. As the music shifted and morphed, the artist remained all at once calm and completely possessed by it. His chest rose and fell in time with the musical phrases, and I found myself breathing right along with him. As my ears opened up, my body settled down into a kind of groove. The tension threatening to overcome me earlier had dissipated, as I allowed the music to wash over me.

And as that internal twinge receded, a different kind of tension emerged. With the music’s steadily increasing tempo, a swelling in my chest grew. Drops quickly transformed into waves as each phrase mutated and evolved into the next. And like a river topping a dam, I was overcome with that agonizing delight tasted only when it was “we”. She and I. Us.

Brilliant images of her flashed in the stillness of my mind. Her consuming gaze commanding my attention. Her gently insistent hands always reaching out, inviting me. Her lithe limbs and torso enfolding me completely. Her lips joined with mine, mouth everywhere at all once, breathing life into me. Her entire being offering itself to me, covering me, protecting me from the harsh realities that grasped for our attention.

The echoes of _"Can_ _you feel this?"_   bounced around inside me, mixing with the relentless sound of the violin.

I was on the verge of breaking completely as the surging sonic tide ebbed. And as my breathing evened, the music slowly gave way to something new. Like the sun breaking the horizon, the music quietly and gradually opened up into what sounded to me like a kind of prayer. Humble. Unimposing. Light. Free. And in this quietness, my entire body awoke and remembered.

_Can you feel this?_ she asked me softly as she methodically caressed each limb, ensuring that the anaesthetic had taken effect. With her, something as banal as procedural protocol was transformed into an act of devotion. And even though I couldn’t feel a damn thing physically, everything within me felt and understood exactly what she meant.

_Je t’aime…Vous êtes mon coeur, mon amour, ma vie…Don’t be afraid….I will never leave you…Je t’aime._

And in the pointed stillness of that precise moment, those old walls collapsed, permitting everything to rush in. I felt it all – the numb throbbing emptiness left by her absence; the failing of my diseased body; the perplexing reality behind this vision; the joy of remembering the weight of her love, the sheer force of our love. I felt it all, believed it all, accepted it all, and was not crushed.

The clinking of coins startled me from my rest and my eyes flew open to see the violinist drawing out the final notes of his song. A little girl stared at me while she grasped her mother’s hand. Her curious gaze questioned my presence there, like I had suddenly materialized out of thin air.

The little maestro wiped his brow with an old handkerchief and wasted no time in starting in on his next piece. Once again, my breathing matched his effortless breath as I stood up to catch the incoming train. Without a second thought, I hopped on board knowing that it would take me to the place I was supposed to be. I pulled out my phone and dialed a familiar number.

“Hey Scott. Please tell me you’re at the lab…"

"... Oh you are? Okay. See you soon.”


End file.
